Transparency in "Long for Later Delivery"

Jul. 10, 2010 6:25 PM ET

Ever since the boxwood tree trading insiders have built the system to their own inside advantage. Often they have used confusion and verbal subterfuge to hide the inherent rigged nature of the financial game. Of principal interest to me, since 1996, is the fact that if there could be an uptick rule, the so-called "short interest" could be reported close to real time. Traditionally clerical complexity and book-keeping frictional time loss have been offered as excuses for shorting to be done invisibly to the retail observer.

I was just advised that as a result of a change in sec regulations, FINRA is now admitting it can give short-sale information on a daily basis. I consider that a major victory. I normally don't write about individual tickers, but about what the prudent speculator needs to understand about the rules of the game. Theoretically, "capitalism" works best when a transparent, liquid market allows Smith's "invisible hand" to adjust the pieces on the board. Reality has always shown that ideally efficient capitalism never produces extremes of profits. Smith himself said that extreme profit was a tax on the poor. So congratulations to the SEC for acting like a capitalist entity, instead of the tool for plutocracy it so often is.